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I have a GTK program which I would like to run from a console in one of the virtual terminals (over SSH, and locally). Is there a way to get this application(or any other GTK application, for future reference) to display to a dummy monitor instead of erring about this?

Note that I do not want to use a CLI version--not all GTK programs have CLI versions.

nanofarad
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  • An X Window app, needs a DISPLAY where to be shown, this is actually a stackexchange issue, and has been answered there, take a look at http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/10121/open-a-window-on-a-remote-x-display-why-cannot-open-display – Awi Jun 12 '12 at 00:46
  • @Awi This is local, not a case of SSH and authority. I have an X server but want to use a VT. – nanofarad Aug 18 '12 at 17:53

1 Answers1

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Is there a way to get this application ... to display to a dummy monitor ...

One word, literally: xvfb

NAME
       Xvfb - virtual framebuffer X server for X Version 11

DESCRIPTION
       Xvfb is an X server that can run on machines with no 
display hardware and no physical input devices.  It emulates
a dumb framebuffer using virtual memory.

The X community has found many other novel uses for Xvfb,
including ... providing an unobtrusive way to run 
applications that don't really need an X server but 
insist on having one anyway.
ish
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    +1, but you might have a better response if you noted an example of using xvfb. i use it to hide the firefox window when i programatically drive it with selenium, for example – RobotHumans Jun 12 '12 at 03:12